User:Keshet101/Julia Drusilla

Reputation
Julia Drusilla was Caligula's favorite sister, with him even going so far as to named her his heir. However, their relationship was so close that it was seen by some as possibly incesteous. The most proponent voice of this rumor was the Roman historian and writer, Suetonius. In his book The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, he writes that Caligula, "lived in habitual incest with all his sisters, and at a large banquet he placed each of them in turn below him, while his wife reclined above. Of these he is believed to have violated Drusilla when he was still a minor, and even to have been caught lying with her by his grandmother Antonia, at whose house they were brought up in company."

There is some belief that these rumors were fueled by effort to discredit Caligula's leadership as part of the condemnation him as an emperor after his death. These rumors not only brought down Caligula's reputation, Drusilla's reputation as well.

Death and aftermath
After her death, Caligula declared her a goddess and renamed her "Diva Drusilla." He had a temple built for her and appointed twenty priests, ten men and ten women, to preside over the worship of her there. He also decreed that her birthday was to become a holiday, and he wanted the statue of Venus in the Forum to be carved in her likeness.